One of the most popular D.C. titles of
the past few years has been the D.C. All-Star run of
Superman. Issue #11 just came-out, and it only
proves that each issue gets better and better.

Written by Grant Morrison,
penciled by Frank Quitely and inked by Jamie Grant,
the entire production just hits on all cylinders.
The trio has taken an approach of re-interpreting
the silver age line of superman story themes that
relied heavily on plots relating to Superman's various
technological toys and resources in his Fortress of
Solitude. Through a plot thread that deals with
Superman being over-radiated by the sun and supposedly
slowly dying, the technological wizardly available at
Superman's fingertips from his fortress inventory is
heavily relied on in a multi-issue narrative thread that
touches upon the familiar Superman world themes of his
relationship with Lois Lane, his rivalry with Lex Luthor, attempting
to relate to his fellow remaining Kryptonians in
ye olde Bottle of Kandor, etc.

The art is breathtakingly exquisite,
no doubt some of the best drawings basically ever produced
in a comic book series. It's also the small, incremental
plot elements that add so much freshness and just plain
enjoyment to this series: Lex Luthor's sarcastic, jaded
Goth niece (does he have family in any other D.C. story
run? This is certainly news to me!), Superman's
heartarchingly innocent and loyal army of duplicate
robots, his odd yet moving communication across time
(utilizing Fortress gizmos) with versions of his future
self (one interesting garbled radio message from his
future self desperately poses the fate-of-the-world
question "Who is J. Lo?").

However, there's a moving
beauty to this particular interpretive Superman series
that goes beyond amazing art and interesting dialogue.
The emotion of the characters is consistently very heartfelt
and often melancholy in a way that I feel puts this
series on a mature literary par with two of the most
classic comic book series of all time, both Watchmen
and Tim Sale's Superman For All Seasons.

Issue #11 is still on the shelf
at That's Entertainment, and the store also has a nice
newly-produced graphic novel format compiling a
reprint of the first six issues. My only criticism
is that issue #12 is advertised in the back of #11 as
the "all star conclusion," and that's a crying shame.
I guess all good things must naturally come to a (hopefully)
satisfying conclusion, but this series is an extremely
A-plus quality classic, and I just wish it could go
on forever. But at least don't miss it; whether
you're one of our seemingly dwindling minority of hard-core
D.C. fanatics (like me) or just a lover of great
comics in general, get issue #11, those back issues
and/or the newly released issues #1 through #6 graphic
novel!